


bearing the weight of the world (will break you)

by claimedbydaryl



Category: One Piece
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Dynamics, Gen, Introspection, Love, Pre-Canon, ep480 hit me right in the honey nut cheerios, that scene where garp is carrying luffy as a kid? yeah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:28:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23351695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claimedbydaryl/pseuds/claimedbydaryl
Summary: Garp remembered carrying Luffy on his back and being scared to let him fall.
Relationships: Monkey D. Garp & Monkey D. Luffy
Kudos: 56





	bearing the weight of the world (will break you)

**Author's Note:**

> I know this is in gross ugly first-person it’s called CREATIVE EXPRESSION but ep480 gave me feelings okay

He’s so small. I can hardly believe that this boy is part of me, with his tiny hands and elastic limbs. I can feel my grip on him slipping, but I don’t want to jostle him by readjusting. He’s been worn ragged and bloody by my training, yet the boy still insists he wants to be a pirate. Luffy damn will fight me to prove that it’s his dream to be king of them all, too.

 _Ha!_ Not a Marine like his grandpa, but a worthless pirate like that Red-Haired Shanks.

It is ridiculous. Luffy is deaf to all my words, so sometimes the only way I could get him to listen is through my fists. Sometimes I can’t stop shaking afterwards. Too many years yelling at subordinates and lazy, arrogant men who ran their mouth for politics rather than action had made my reactions thoughtless and violent. It is beginning to be a problem.

But I couldn’t bear it if Luffy looked at me like those cowardly green recruits did though. If his big, expressive eyes ever cowered in fear of my raised hand, or his shoulders bridged inwards when I approached. Fist of love, alright. If this boy with his wide smile and unshadowed happiness ever flinched away from me, I don’t know what I’d do with myself.

So, how could I hit him?

How could I ever take this pure, shining light and blacken it out?

I shake my head, trying to dislodge the thoughts free. The way down the mountain is thankfully easy to tread, with the vegetation growing low and other threats manageable. There is nothing here that I wouldn’t do if Luffy is endangered anyway. Despite what people—like Dadan—thought, he is my precious grandson. I do whatever I can for him—or, well, I try to.

Luffy doesn’t seem to mind, not really, but I know I’m a poor excuse for a grandfather. My one chance to do things right again and I’m already letting him down. This loudmouthed brat who follows Ace around like a lost pup, who cries so damn easily, who doesn’t ask or expect anything. Who just accepts whatever shitty hand that life deals him.

I think that’s what curls around my heart and grips it, almost threatening to undo the complex mechanisms of breathing, or feeling, that I had long since adapted to. It will break me one day, the knowledge that Luffy loves this world far more than I ever will. I can’t begin to think where that will take him, or how that won’t forever be by my side, safe and hidden away.

Someday I won’t just be able to visit him at my discretion. There will be no gummy smiles and loud, excitable voice calling out to greet me as I appear. He won’t stay small forever. He won’t be able to fall asleep on my back, clutching my shirt, murmuring, “Grandpa…”

Grandpa, he calls me.

Luffy’s tiny hand pulls at me in a twitch of sleep again, and I hate that an act so insignificant and menial somehow makes a hot surge of emotion lodge in my throat. Whatever has hardened me in this life can be utterly destroyed in the moments it takes for Luffy to blindly seek me out in search of comfort. The feeling is so precious that I fear it is fragile.

Lifting my chin, I stare ahead. Somehow my footsteps maintain a steady pace and I don’t falter. Light bears down on my back with a pleasing warmth. It is nice to get out of the constraints of my Marine uniform when I can, to drink and laugh and tease my boys until they puff out their tiny faces. I never really got to experience peace like this. I was untouchable right now, so far removed from the heavy mantle of obligations and loyalties I had to carry the burden of. My muscles are already aching.

Still, if I could trade it in for just one of these afternoons—a paltry fragment of time—I would.

Luffy mumbles in his sleep, snoring against my back. His words are slurred, a senseless jumble, but I know what he is saying. _I want to be king of the pirates… Just like Shanks…_ Such a childish mantra, but he sticks to it.

This world has predestined victors of an ageless war, and they aren’t pirates, they aren’t even Marines. Luffy could never win against the Celestial Dragons. It isn’t something I ever wanted to see him try, for his sake or my own. It is dangerous enough to even entertain the idea. I clench my jaw, teeth grinding together at the mere thought.

Luffy is barely a kid. He is _my_ kid—and I would protect that until my death.

I could see the ground flatten up ahead, where the thick, green shrubbery and trees eases out, and grass shines golden under the bright glare of sunlight. My steps slowed. Reaching that point means I would be closer—almost there—to returning Luffy to Dadan. I would have to get on my ship and see what havoc the Marines had wreaked without me there, and Luffy would be left here. I stopped wondering if he missed me long ago.

I know what I feel, anyway. My emotions still haven’t changed since the first moment I handed over Luffy to someone else as a baby, the boy swaddled in blankets and crying, face swollen red. The weight on my back is the same as it had been my arms once—it is the same emotion unfurling in my chest, uncomfortable and terrifying. That love has stayed with me the moment I saw Luffy. I don’t want to forget what that feels like.

I don’t want to push the limits of what I feel for Luffy, of what I’d do for him.

I don’t want to let Luffy go.

I wish that overgrown path down the mountain would never reach its end.


End file.
